Recipe for Low-Carb Coffee Ice Cream

At 2.3g net carbs, this low-carb coffee ice cream saves you a massive 24g net carbs per serving over normal coffee ice cream. And if you’re a coffee freak, be warned – it’s so gorgeous that I’ve hardly been able to put down the spoon!

I mean it, this ice cream is fantastic, and very easy to make as long as you have an ice cream maker. You just have to remember to get things going some hours – or the night – before, by infusing the coffee in the cream mixture so that it imparts its flavour.

The finished ice cream is gorgeously creamy and sweet, and quite strong if you make it with freshly ground coffee as I did. So a creamy espresso-strength ice cream really – which is the way I like it. After straining, it has a few flecks of ground coffee throughout which – as I like eating whole chocolate-covered coffee beans – I find is lovely, and makes this a rather grown up dessert. But if you want to make the coffee taste milder, then use whole beans instead of ground coffee, and/or don’t infuse for too long.

You want to make sure you use good quality coffee, and as fresh as possible, for this. Old and/or poor quality coffee will carry through its stale taste to the ice cream. And if you’re using ground coffee as I have, you want a medium grind size as you would use for a filter or drip, or a coarse grind size as you would use for a cafetière (French Press). Don’t use espresso coffee which is finely-ground. That’s all because, once you’ve finished infusing the ground coffee in the cream mixture, as in the first step of the recipe, you want the coffee grounds to be large enough for most of them to be seived out before you make the ice cream.

Made in my Magimix ice cream maker, this ice cream turns out with an Italian soft scoop consistency, as that’s what that ice cream maker does.

This recipe includes xanthan gum, commonly used in low-carb cooking to bind things together better. It’s readily available in the baking section of supermarkets. If you can’t find it, or don’t what to bother buying it, then it is optional. But if you can get it, it will improve consistency.

Sugar is the main thing you’re swapping out in this recipe to reduce the carb count drastically. Using unsweetened almond milk instead of any type of cow’s milk also reduces the carbs by removing the lactose sugar.

(UK supermarket brand) Waitrose-own Colombian Coffee seemed a pretty similar ice cream to hold this up against. So compared to that, you’re saving a massive amount of carbs – more than 24g in fact.

There’s more calories and fat in the low-carb version, and that’s fine by me. On our low-carb way of eating we’re concerned with reducing sugar, which will sometimes be replaced with fat, which will help keep you fuller for longer. This is the sugar-fat seesaw in action, that I’ve written about before. And if you’re following a strict keto diet, then this low-carb coffee ice cream may help you increase your fat macros, while keeping carbs and protein low/moderate.

Health Impact of the Ingredients

Many of the ingredients for this low-carb coffee ice cream are becoming old favourites in my recipes. I’ve written before about the health impacts of eggs, cream, almond milk and erythritol, so you may be familiar with them by now.

There’s much to say and evaluate from the scientific research about whether coffee and caffeine may have health benefits. They include potentially helping to prevent type 2 diabetes, dementia, colorectal cancer and Parkinson’s disease. And antioxidants and other compounds in coffee might have roles in the prevention of other diseases. So I will dedicate a full post to the health impacts of coffee at some point in future. Sign up below to follow me by email if you don’t want to miss it.

Directions

Let the coffee infuse, so that its flavour seeps into the milk and cream, for at least 2 hours. I prefer to leave it overnight in the fridge covered with cling film, to get a stronger coffee flavour.

Microwave the milk, cream and coffee on high for 2 minutes. Then – using a fine sieve if you’ve used ground coffee – strain the cream and milk mixture into another microwaveable bowl and discard the coffee.

Add the granulated sugar substitute, vanilla essence, salt, and egg yolks to the coffee-flavoured cream and milk, and sieve in the xanthan gum, if using. Stir well to ensure all is combined.

Microwave the mixture again for 30 seconds and stir. Repeat twice more this microwaving for 30 seconds and then stirring. If it is slightly thickened at this point then it’s done, but in my 800w microwave I need to repeat the 30 seconds microwaving and stirring once more.

Sieve the mixture to remove any lumps, cover the bowl with cling film, and place it in the freezer for 30 minutes to chill. You can leave it a bit longer than this if you’re going to go away and do something else, but not too long, or the mixture may freeze to be too hard to be churnable.

After 30 minutes, churn the coffee cream in your ice cream maker according to its instructions. I give it 30 minutes in my relatively ancient Magimix ice cream maker.

The ice cream could then be served straight away. But to get the best consistency before serving, decant it to a plastic container and give it a few hours in the freezer first.

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Hi TinderellaAnna. Thanks for getting in contact and I’m delighted you like the post. Are you trying to use the Follow Me button on my home page? If so then I can’t see an obvious reason why it’s sending up an error message and I’ll ask WordPress if there’s a bug. And yes, I would love to have a look at your blog later.

Over on Facebook someone asked if they could use good quality instant coffee in place of real coffee grounds in this recipe. Here’s my response: ‘That’s instant coffee isn’t it? I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t try that yes. But obviously there’d be no coffee grounds to strain away. You’d just need to dissolve the powder in the heated cream I guess, so it might make the recipe quite a bit quicker as there’d be no need for steeping the coffee grounds beforehand. Obviously instant coffee, even the best quality stuff, has a different flavour to freshly ground coffee, but if it’s a coffee you like, then I think it should work fine.’

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